EBENEZER RICHARDSON.
The Richardson family were the earliest settlers of Woburn, Massachusetts. Ezekiel, Samuel and Thomas Richardson, three brothers, with four other persons, laid the foundations of the town, in 1641. In 1642 it was incorporated under the name of Woburn, the name of a town in Herefordshire.
Samuel Richardson, the ancestor of Ebenezer Richardson, came to Charlestown, about 1636, as his name appears on the records of July 1 of that date as one of a committee to "lay out lots of land for hay." When the three brothers settled at Woburn, they lived near each other on the same street, which was laid out in 1647, as Richardson's Row, by which name it has ever since been known. It runs almost due north and south, in the N. E. part of the present town of Winchester.
Lieut. John Richardson, eldest son of Samuel, was born Nov. 12, 1639, was a yeoman, and soldier in King Philip's war, and passed his life in Woburn, and died there in 1696. John Richardson, son of Lieut. John was a carpenter, and lived in Woburn. He died March 18, 1715.
Timothy Richardson, son of John, was born in Woburn, 1687, was badly wounded in Lovewell's Indian fight at Pigwacket. The colony having offered one hundred pounds for Indian scalps, Captain Lovewell went with forty-six men on a scalp hunt into Maine. Captain Lovewell was the first one killed. The fight lasted ten hours, those who left the fatal battle ground, were twenty in number, of whom eleven were badly wounded, among whom was Timothy Richardson, who lived for ten years afterwards, but in great suffering he died in Woburn in 1735.
Ebenezer Richardson, eldest son of Timothy, and Abigail Johnson, was born in Woburn, March 31, 1718, and married Rebecca (Fowle) Richardson, daughter of Captain John and Elizabeth (Prescott) Fowle, of Woburn, and widow of Phineas Richardson. His father's farm was bounded easterly by the Woburn and Stoneham line, it was here probably that Ebenezer was born.[248]
Ebenezer Richardson was an officer of the Customs in Boston. On the 22 Feb., 1770, he was assailed by a mob who chased him to his home, bricks and stones were thrown at the windows. Richardson, provoked, fired at random into the mob, dangerously wounding one of them, Samuel Gore, and mortally wounding another, Christopher Snider, a poor German boy, who died the next morning.
The excitement was intense, the funeral of the boy was attended by the revolutionists, and the event taken advantage of to fire the passions of the people. On the 20th of April, Richardson was tried for his life and brought in guilty of murder. Chief Justice Hutchinson viewed the guilt of Richardson, as everybody would now, a clear case of justifiable homicide, and consequently refused to sign a warrant for his execution, and after lying in prison two years, was, on application to the King, pardoned and set at liberty.[249] To reward Richardson for what he had suffered, he was appointed in 1773 as an officer of the Customs of Philadelphia.
Historians have treated Richardson very unfairly, and caused his memory to be execrated. He was a Custom House officer, and the duties of his office caused him to seize smuggled goods, as any custom house officer would at the present time, previous to that he belonged to the secret service division for the detection of illicit traders, on this account he has always been contemptuously called an "informer". He was not any worse than hundreds of secret service agents employed at the present time by the United States Government, to detect law-breakers. They are of course detested by the criminal classes, and the mountaineer moonshiners of Kentucky consider it no crime to kill them, when the opportunity offers. After Richardson's release, he went to Philadelphia to reside, so as to escape mob violence; the malignity of the revolutionists, however, followed him, and a scurrilous effusion was published there entitled "The Life and Humble Confession of Richardson the Informer."
The broadside was embellished with a rude wood cut of Richardson firing into the mob, and the killing of the boy Snider. The same has been recently republished, and the author states "Whatever facts it may contain, are doubtless expanded beyond the limits of the actual truth."[250]
COMMODORE JOSHUA LORING.[251]
Thomas Loring came from Axminster in Devonshire, England, to Dorchester with his wife, Jane, whose maiden name was Newton, in the year 1634, they removed to Hingham, and finally settled and died at Hull in 1661, leaving many descendants, who still reside in Hull, and Hingham.
Commodore Joshua Loring was descended from Thomas Loring. He was born at Boston, Aug. 3, 1716. He was apprenticed to Mr. Mears, a tanner of Roxbury. When he was of age he went to sea. About 1740 he married Mary, daughter of Samuel Curtice, of Roxbury. In 1744 he was master of a Brigantine Privateer of Boston, and while cruising near Louisburg, was taken by two French Men of War.
He purchased an estate in 1752, on Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, of Joshua Cheever, on which he erected what has since been known as the Greenough mansion. It is said to have been framed in England and was one of the finest residences in Roxbury. It was situated opposite the intersection of Center and South streets, opposite the soldiers' monument.
On December 19, 1757, He was commissioned captain in the British Navy, was Commodore of the naval forces on Lakes Champlain and Ontario, and participated in the capture of Quebec under Wolfe, and in the conquest of Canada in the succeeding campaign of Amherst. He was severely wounded in the leg while in command on Lake Ontario, and at the close of the war he retired on half pay, at which time he settled down at Jamaica Plain, Roxbury. He was one of the five Commissioners of the revenue, and General Gage by writ of mandamus appointed him a member of his Council, and he was sworn in Aug. 17, 1774. This immediately subjected him to the strictest surveillance by the revolutionists, and the greatest pressure was brought to bear upon him to throw up the obnoxious office. A diarist, under date of Aug. 29, speaking of a Roxbury town meeting recently held says, "Late in the evening a member visited Commodore Loring, and in a friendly way advised him to follow the example of his townman Isaac Winslow, (who had already resigned). He desired time to consider it. They granted it, but acquainted him if he did not comply he must expect to be waited on by a large number, actuated by a different spirit. (Tarred and feathered and rode on a rail). On the morning of the Lexington battle, after passing most of the previous night in consultation with Deacon Joseph Brewer, his neighbor and intimate friend, upon the step he was about to take, he mounted his horse, left his home and everything belonging to it, never to return again, and pistol in hand, rode at full speed to Boston, stopping on the way only to answer an old friend, who asked 'Are you going, Commodore?' 'Yes,' he replied. 'I have always eaten the king's bread, and always intend to.'" The sacrifice must have been especially painful to him, for he was held in high esteem by his friends and neighbors, but he could not spurn the hand that had fed him, and rather than do a dishonorable act, he would sacrifice all he possessed, even the land of his birth. At the evacuation he went to England. He received a pension from the crown until his decease at Highgate, in October, 1781, at the age of sixty-five. Joshua Loring was proscribed, banished and his large estate confiscated. His mansion house was in May, 1775, headquarters of General Nathaniel Greene, and afterwards for a brief period, a hospital for American soldiers, many of whom were buried on the adjacent grounds. Later Captain Isaac Sears bought the property of the State, and lived there for several years.
Mary, his widow, was through the influence of Lord North, pensioned for life; she settled at Englesfield, Berkshire County, England, where she died in 1789 at the age of eighty.
Joshua Loring, Jr. was a twin brother of Benjamin Loring, sons of Commodore Loring. He was born Nov., 1744. He was an Addresser of Governor Hutchinson in 1774, and of Gen. Gage in 1775. One of the last official acts of the latter in Boston was his proclamation of June 7, 1775, appointing Mr. Loring "sole vendue-master and auctioneer." He was High Sheriff and a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1769. In 1776 he went to Halifax with the Royal Army, and, early the next year, he was appointed Commissary of Prisoners by Sir William Howe. He was severely criticized at the time by the Revolutionists, for cruelties to his unfortunate countrymen who were prisoners, but as Sabine truly says, "it is not easy to ascertain the truth or to determine his personal responsibility in the treatment of prisoners."[252] He was proscribed and banished, and died in England in 1789, aged forty-five. His wife was a Miss Lloyd, to whom he was married at the house of Colonel Hatch in Dorchester in 1769. His son,
Sir John Wentworth Loring was born in Roxbury, Oct., 1773; was baptized in Trinity church by Rev. D. Walters, Nov. 29; was a midshipman in the British navy, and from 1819 to 1837 was Lieut. Governor of the Royal Naval College. In 1841 was advanced to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Red and in 1847 was promoted Vice Admiral of the White. His son, William, was Captain of the "Scout" in the Royal Navy.
Dr. Benjamin Loring, twin brother of Joshua Loring, Jr., born in 1744, graduated at Harvard College in 1772. He was a Surgeon in a Regiment in the King's service in South Carolina. At the peace, accompanied by his family of five persons, and by one servant, he went from New York to Shelburne, Nova Scotia. His losses in consequences of his loyalty were estimated at $15,000. He was an absentee but not proscribed. He returned to Boston and died there in 1798, aged sixty-five.
Commodore John Loring, son of Commodore Joshua, was a midshipman in the Royal Navy, at fourteen years of age. In 1776 he was one of four prisoners taken in the schooner Valent, and sent into Boston, as there was no place provided for prisoners he was sent to Concord Jail by the Council, who ordered "that Edward Marsh, and John Loring should not use pen or paper, nor any one allowed to speak to them, but in the presence of the jailor". His uncle Obediah Curtis being a very influential man, interceded for him so strenuously, he being but quite a youth, that he was released and sent to the care of Col. Buckminster of Framingham, his wife's father. His kind host was in danger of having his home demolished for harboring a "young Tory", on account of the young man calling his neighbors "rascally rebels." In 1776 he was exchanged and returned to England. He was early a Post Captain. In 1793 he had command of the British Squadron in the Camatic. In 1803 he had command of the Frigate Bellerophon (which in 1813 conveyed Napoleon to St. Helena) and captured the French Frigate Duquesne, 74 guns, and a national schooner. In the same year he was Commodore of the British Fleet off Cape Francoix, which blockaded and defeated the French squadron, and the troops under Rochambeau, Nov. 30, 1803. Commodore John Loring died at his seat in Farehan, Nov. 9, 1808, leaving a widow and children. The Naval service lost in him "one of its most brave, zealous and humane officers." He married Miss Macneal of Campleton Argyleshire, a lady of great beauty. His son Hector, became captain of the Howe, 120 guns, of the Royal Navy. He married Miss Charlotte Jessy, daughter of James Jamison of the Royal Bengal Medical Service. His eldest son John, a midshipman on board of the Eurylas, in 1820, died of the yellow fever at Bermuda.
Joseph Royal Loring, son of Commodore Joshua, probably never married. He was captain of the Brigantine "William," owned by Richard Clarke and Sons, of Boston, engaged in bringing tea from London to Boston. It was the fourth and last vessel on the East India Company's account to sail there. She was cast ashore at Provincetown on Cape Cod. The tea was saved and conveyed to the Castle in Boston Harbor. Very little is known afterwards of Captain Royal Loring.
LIST OF CONFISCATED ESTATES BELONGING TO JOSHUA LORING IN SUFFOLK COUNTY AND TO WHOM SOLD.
To John Keyes, Aug. 31, 1779; Lib. 130, fol. 191; Land 19 A., mansion house and barn in Roxbury, Joshua Loring N. and N.E.; Lemuel May E.; Ebenezer Weld S.; road leading to Dedham W.; then running S.; E. and N. on land of John Keyes.
To Isaac Sears, Oct. 28, 1779; Lib. 130, fol. 237; Farm, 54 A. 3 qr. 9 r., and mansion house in Roxbury, road leading by Jamaica meeting-house to Boston W.; heirs of Mr. Burroughs deceased N. and N.W.; lane N.E.; lane and Capt. May E.; land of Joshua Loring, absentee, now of John Keyes S.——5 1-2 A. salt marsh, creek W.; Mr. Bowdoin S.; heirs of Joseph Weld deceased E.; heirs of John Williams deceased N.
To James Swan, Feb. 1, 1782; Lib. 134, fol. 6; Wood or pasture land, 8 A. 31 r., in Brookline, road W.; Mr. Crafts N.W. and N.E.; Capt. Baker S.E.
To John Tufts, Apr. 28. 1783; Lib. 138, fol. 101; Land and dwelling-house in Boston, common or training-field N.W.; West St. N E.; David Colson S.E.; heirs or assigns of Dr. George Stewart S.W.
To Ellis Gray, Nov 23, 1795; Lib. 181, fol. 275; Wood and pasture land, 24 1-2 A. 7 r., in Roxbury, near Henry Williams; Caleb Williams and Mr. Morries S.E.; Ebenezer Chanies S.W.; Mr. Bourn N.W. and N.E.